Delegation

Chapter 20

Delegation

Learning Outcomes

After reading this chapter you should be able to:

• Identify what delegation is and how to delegate.
• Know what kinds of tasks can be delegated.
• Identify some problems arising from poor delegation.

The APM BoK 6ed (2012) defines Delegation as: The practice of giving a person or group the authority to perform the responsibilities of, or act on behalf of, another.

For our purposes, the Concise Oxford English Dictionary defines Delegation as: Verb /delligayt/ entrust (a task or responsibility) to another person.

The objective of delegation is to get work done by someone else (e.g. a team member). In the project context, work should be assigned as a complete package, including the authority associated with decision making and incorporation of any modifications that come from new information, without having to refer back to the person who has delegated the task.

1. Reasons for Delegating

During a project, the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) provides a list of all the work needed to complete the project. This provides a list of activities that can be delegated to, for example, the project team. Selection of the people to complete each activity will depend upon whether they have the appropriate skills and experience, if they are available, or if you want them to develop skills in some aspects of the work.

There are two main reasons for delegating work:

Delegate to Take Control of Your Time: Some project work might not really need to be done by you personally. What issues really need your attention? When your time is tight and you need to create some space to better focus on those issues that only you can do, you need to think about delegating work to the project team.

Delegate to Grow Your People: When you share important work and devolve accountability and authority, you demonstrate your belief in people and help them to grow their knowledge, skills and abilities.In some organizations, it is not possible for a leader to move on until there is a suitable replacement to take their place. If this is not overtly stated, it can be used as a reason for preventing promotion; ‘there is nobody else to do your job, so we had to choose someone else for the promotion’. This is a good reason to develop someone to take your place when you are ready for your next step.Importantly, some aspects of the project might need to be contracted out. In terms of delegation, you might want to consider a procurement strategy that broadens or develops companies which can support you better in the future. You might want to assist a subcontractor to develop expertise in a field that might have interesting developments for the future that will benefit your company. Alternatively, you might desire to foster competition among subcontractors in order to keep their prices keen or to promote product development. A third possibility is to maintain a good subcontractor base, so you might pass out work equally to give them all sufficient business.The leader must be prepared for delegating work. Delegation requires management time and energy to ensure the delegation is effective and successful. You should not assume that delegation can be efficient; it might take you longer to delegate a task effectively than it would take to do the task yourself. However, you should think of the long-term benefits that delegation can offer in terms of development. You need to use your experience to help them achieve the task rather than to complete it yourself. Additional work you will need to consider when delegating includes clearly identifying the work and establishing a way to monitor progress and results. You will need to provide support and to communicate. Delegation is a skill that a good leader must acquire. It can be an art rather than a science; this means that, though there are some rules, you will have to make your approach to delegating fit your personal style. To become an effective delegator, you will need to practice delegating.

2. What Can be Delegated?

Before deciding to delegate something you should consider if the task is suitable for delegation. We can look through the WBS’s work packages and the responsibility assignment matrix (RAM) and inspect each activity for suitability for delegation (see Figure 20.1). There are some simple tests that can indicate appropriateness of a task.

Figure 20.1:

Delegation Matrix – shows a link between the scope of work and what can be delegated

What tasks are easy to explain? Delegation requires clear communication about what the work is and what your expectations are about success. Are you able to clearly describe the task and set realistic expectations for how it will be achieved successfully? This means that the task is likely to be suitable for delegation to the right people.What tasks can they perform? Do you think this is the right person or people to receive the work? Do they have the relevant experience or knowledge to do the work to the necessary standard? If not, is appropriate training available to help them? Will they be able to take the whole task or will it need to be phased into stages so that you can monitor progress more carefully?

Can associated decisions be delegated? Can the decisions that are likely to come up be delegated effectively to the right people? Will they be able to make suitable decisions without your input or involvement? Can the total ownership of the task be delegated?

Will the task be motivating? Will the task be seen as exciting and challenging or mundane? Both types should be allocated widely across all staff. Think back to when you were in their situation. What activities did you perform? Which did you enjoy?

Expectations of Quality: What are the necessary quality standards expected for the work? These should identify the required competency of the worker. What will be the consequences of failure and what would constitute failure of this work?

Timing: The timing of the task is important; timing is indicated in the schedule or Gantt chart and the resource histogram (see Figure 20.2). Delays in the completion of an activity can have schedule implications for the overall project, especially if the activity is on the critical path. The project manager needs to check the resource loading because, on the one hand, resource overload might be the reason for the delegation but, on the other hand, the project manager needs to check the availability of the delegatee. The project manager needs to think about these limitations before deciding to delegate an activity. Is there time to complete the task and is there time available to redo the task if it is not completed to expectations? What will be the consequences of not completing the task on time?

Rules for Success Delegation can be a straightforward process if you follow some simple rules (see Figure 20.3). These rules are appropriate to delegation within your project and for passing work to subcontractors.

The steps of successful delegation are:

Figure 20.3: Delegation Spiral – shows the sequence of delegating

1. Define the task: Be very clear in your own mind what the task is and what your expectations are of a properly completed piece of work. You must be able to clearly describe the task and your expectations as well as any boundaries, constraints or priorities that must be maintained during the work. Why is this task important? How does it fit with other work? These should already be included in the job card.
2. Select the individual or team: You should also have clear reasons for choosing the person or people to do the work. What benefit will they get from doing the work and how can you explain what you will be getting out of it? You should explain the importance of the task, how it fits with other work and why you have selected them to do it.
3. Determine ability and training needs: You should ensure that your people have the capability to do the work. Will they understand what needs to be done? Do you need to provide training or development as part of the delegation? This might involve some discussion or negotiation with them so that you all understand the situation and can agree on the appropriate way forward to ensure the success of the task is not compromised.
4. State required results and deadlines: You must be very clear about what must be achieved and when the work must be finished. It is important to clarify the team members’ understanding and obtain their feedback about the work and your expectations. How will the task be performed (build method)? How will the completed task be measured, and how will you decide that the work has been done successfully (quality control)? What are the deadlines or review dates? Are there any intermediary stages that they must achieve, such as reports or meetings? It is important to establish how you will be involved so that it is not interpreted as interference or lack of trust.
5. What resources are required? What will be required to complete the work? Often, this is about the information that they need, though it might be people, premises, equipment, materials, money or other services that can be identified. What authority will they have to acquire other resources identified during the work? Are there any issues about politics or protocols that they need to know?
6. Confirm understanding and get their suggestions: When the work has been identified and discussed, you should make sure there is agreed understanding about the task. You should check for the team members’ interpretation and elicit any ideas and suggestions they might have. Also, you should make sure they are able to complete the work, depending on their ability and other commitments (check the resource histogram).
7. Manage stakeholders, support and communicate: Who else needs to know what is going on? Do other people need to know about this delegation and associated authority held by your people? You should inform others about this and not expect your people to do so. Make sure information and other resources that are needed are enabled and available.
8. Provide feedback on results: It is important to provide supportive feedback about the work progress and achievement. Have they achieved the aims? Are there any examples of good work that can be praised? Was there any indication of underperformance that would need additional development and support? An effective leader will absorb the consequences of failure and pass on all credit for success. How did they make decisions? You should ask them to explain how they operated a good decision-making process so that you can support this in the future. Any comments and recommendations should be included in the closeout report.
9. Delegation Contract

Sometimes it can be helpful to set a formal agreement for delegated work that clearly documents the expected outcomes and the involvement of all parties. This helps to clarify any agreements and commitments regarding deadlines, resource provision, cash availability and standards of work. In this context, it is not intended that this would be a legal document but rather a means of communication between the stakeholders involved in the work. Such a contract can be a very simple document, perhaps one page in length, that captures:

• A clear statement of the task in terms of expected benefits and/or deliverables.
• SMART objectives and measures of a successful outcome (see Chapter 23 on Problem Solving).
• Any constraints (usually deadlines, review dates, costs and quality expectations) should be identified.
• Any assumptions that have been made that might become invalid as the work progresses.
• Any specific exclusions to what might be expected (e.g. the document will be updated but will not be copied and distributed).

The contract provides a means of formal agreement that represents commitment, accountability and authority. It provides a source of information that can be agreed upon or challenged, if necessary.

An example template is shown in Table 20.1.

Table 20.1: Delegation Contract – shows the types of information needed for delegation to be communicated effectively

5. Problems with Delegation

Generally, delegation is full of benefits for you and the people who receive successful delegation. Unfortunately, delegation can be operated improperly and this can lead to negative outcomes.

Your Involvement: You should carefully gauge your involvement in the delegated work so that you are providing the right amount of support but you are not being seen to interfere. One way to overcome this problem is to formalize your encounters. This maintains your distance from the work and encourages the team members to engage with issues before asking for help. Obviously, there might be emergency situations where the formality must be removed.Another way is to refuse to be involved in the decision-making process or to provide input to solutions. This would encourage them to come to you with their proposals rather than relying on your expertise. Also, this could prevent you from taking a controlling or inappropriately influencing role in the work.

Your Expectations: When you delegate work, it might not be completed to the same standards that you set for yourself. As long as the results are fit for purpose, the job is well done. You should be clear about what constitutes successful outcomes. This will take practice to get it right – how to set effective and clear measures and then how to observe outcomes against them. Experience tells us that properly delegated work usually far exceeds expectations because people are keen to show what they can do.

Your Fear of Failure: If you become anxious that the outcomes will be unsuccessful, you might be tempted to intervene. This must be done carefully and sensitively, or else the purpose of the delegation as development can be destroyed. Be aware that you might be micro-managing the situation and the people; this can only introduce a feeling of not being trusted. Micro-management is when a manager provides too much input and direction, and expects to review the work too frequently. Micro-managers are often those so in fear of failure that they cannot ‘let go’ of their control.It might be prudent to wait until the last moment before taking action because, as a learning experience, failure can be a great teacher! The learning that can be acquired from things that went wrong can be more valuable than getting the job right.

Abdication: Delegation should not be treated as a way to dispose of work without follow-up or support. Passing on work without maintaining sufficient links with people is a form of abdication where the leader refuses involvement or is not available for support when needed.You will note that all the reasons for failure of delegation lie at the leader’s feet. There are no reasons why failure should be elsewhere because the leader should be in control of the delegation (this does not mean being in control of the delegated work). The leader must take responsibility for establishing the right level of involvement and ensuring the goals are effectively identified and understood.

EXERCISES:Do you have any experience of delegating work or having work delegated to you? How effective was this delegation experience? Was the work delegated effectively, or not? What did you learn from your experience? What do you think the other parties learnt? You should justify your reasons.Convert these loose criteria into SMART objectives. You can insert your own data, such as deadlines, referenced documents and other information, to enhance the ‘smartness’ of the objective:To increase sales.To distribute the report to all parties.To satisfy the customers’ requirements.To improve customer relations by providing a high-quality service.To improve call-out response and reduce maintenance costsKey Points:When identifying tasks appropriate for delegation, the leader should consider staff experience, quality expectations as ‘fit for purpose’ and if the task can be completed in the time available.The key components of effective and successful delegation are clear establishment of expected outcomes and a suitable level of leadership involvement.Reasons for failure of delegated actions belong to the leader.